the club. The incidental music is also written by them. Scarcely has one year's play been produced before the rehearsals for the next begin. The result is a performance of a finished beauty which not only astounds Easterners, but surprises Europeans. Although undoubtedly it is the best, it is only one of numberless out-of-door masques, plays and pageants produced all over California.

As for the Exposition of 1915, when I say that for many Californians, it will take the edge off some of the beauty of Europe, I am quite serious. For it was colored in the gorgeous gamut of the Orient, clamant yellows, oranges, golds, combined with mysterious blues, muted scarlets. And it was illuminated as no Exposition has ever before been illuminated; with lights that dripped down from the cornices of the buildings; or shot up from their foundations; or gleamed through transparent pillars; or glistened behind tumbling waters; or sparkled within leaping fountains. Some of this light even floated from enormous braziers, thereby filling the night with clouds of mist-flame; or flooded across the bay from reservoirs of tinted glass, thereby sluicing the whole dream-world with fluid color. All this was reflected in still lakes and quiet pools. The procession of one year's seasons gradually subdued its gorgeousness to an effect of antiquity, toned but still colorful. The quick-growing California vines covered it with an age-old luxuriance of green. As for the architecture—I repeat that the Californian, seeing for the first time the square of St. Peter's in Rome and of St. Mark's in Venice, is likely to suffer a transitory but definite sense of disappointment. For the big central court of the Exposition held suggestions of both these squares. It seemed quite as old and permanent. And it was much more striking in situation, with the bay offering an immense, flat blue extension at one side and the city hills, pricked with lights, slanting up and away from the other. By day, the joyous, whimsical fantasy of the colossal Tower of Jewels, which caught the light in millions of rainbow sparkles, must, for children at least, have made of its entrance the door to fairyland. At night, there was the tragedy of old history about those faintly fiery facades... those enormous shadow-haunted hulks. ..

Remember, last of all, as naturally as from infancy the Native Son has breathed the tonic and toxic air of California, he has breathed the spirit of democracy. That spirit of democracy is so strong, indeed, that the enfranchised women of California give intelligent guidance to the feminists of a whole nation; public opinion is so enlightened that it sets a pace for the rest of the country and labor is so progressive that it is a revelation to the visiting sociologist.

Indeed, nowhere in the whole world, I fancy, is labor so healthy, so happy, so prosperous. California brings to the workers' problems the free enlightened attitude characteristic of her. As between on the one hand hordes of unemployed; huge slums; poverty spots; and on the other a well-paid laboring class with fair hours, she chooses the latter, thereby storing up for herself eugenic capital.

I have always wished that California would strike off a series of medals symbolic of some of the Utopian conditions which prevail there. I would like to suggest a model for one. I was walking once in the vicinity of the Ferry with a woman who knows the labor movement of California as well as an outsider may. Suddenly she whispered in my ear, "Oh look! Isn't he a typical California labor man?"

It was his noon hour and, in his shirt sleeves, he was leaning against the wall, a pipe in his mouth. He was tall and lean; not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his splendid frame, but a great deal of muscle that lay in long, faintly swelling contours against it. He was black haired and black-mustached; both hair and mustache were lightly touched with grey. His thicklashed blue eyes sparkled as clear and happy as a child's. In their expression and, indeed, in the whole relaxed attitude of his fine, long figure, was an entertained, contented interest, an amused tolerance of the passing crowd. You will see this type, among others equally fine, again and again, in the unions of California.

Yes, that spirit of democracy is not only strong but militant.

Militant! I never could make up my mind which made the fightingest reading in the San Francisco papers, the account of Friday's boxing contest or of Monday's meeting of the Board of Supervisors. They do say that a visiting Easterner was taken to the Board of Supervisors one afternoon. In the evening he was regaled with a battle royal. And, and—they do say—he fell asleep at the battle royal because it seemed so tame in comparison with the Board of Supervisors.

The athletic instinct in the Native Son accounts for the star athletes, boxers, tennis players, ball players; that art instinct for the painters, illustrators, sculptors, playwrights, fiction writers, poets, actors, photographers, producers; that spirit of democracy for the labor leaders and politicians with whom California has inundated the rest of the country.

I started to make a list of the famous Californians in all these classes. But, when I had filled one sheet with names, realizing that no matter how hard I cudgelled my memory, I would inevitably forget somebody of importance, I tore it up. Take a copy of "Who's Who" and cut out the lives of all those who don't come from California and see what a respectable-sized volume you have left.

If any woman tourist should ask me what was the greatest menace to the peace of mind of a woman travelling alone in California, I should answer instantly—the Native Son. I wish I could draw a picture of him. Perhaps he's too good looking. Myself, I think the enfranchised women of California should bring injunctions—or whatever is the proper legal weapon—against so dangerous a degree of male pulchritude. Of course the Native Son could reply that, in this respect, he has nothing on the Native Daughter, she being without doubt the most beautiful woman in the world. To, this, however, she could retort that that is as it should be, but it's no fair for mere men to be stealing her stuff.

This is misleading!

That agglomeration of the Anglo-Saxon, the Celt and the Latin, has endowed the Native Son with the pulchritude of all three races. In eugenic combination with Ireland, California is peculiarly happy. The climate has made him tall and big. His athletic habits has made him shapely and strong. Both have given him clear eyes, a smooth skin, swift grace of motion. Those clear eyes invest him with a look of innocence and unsophistication. He is as rich in dimples as though they had been shaken onto him from a salt-cellar. One in each cheek, one in his chin—count them—three! The Native Daughter would have a license to complain of this if she herself didn't look as thou she'd been sprinkled with dimples from a pepper-caster. In addition—oh, but what's the use? Who ever managed to paint the lily with complimentary words or gild refined gold with fancy phrases? The region bounded by Post, Bush, Mason and Taylor Streets contains San Francisco's most famous clubs. Any Congress of Eugenists wishing to establish a standard of male beauty for the human race has only to place a moving-picture machine at the entrance of any one of these—let us say the Athletic Club. The results will at the same time enrapture and discourage a dazzled world. I will prophesy that some time those same enfranchised women of California are going to realize the danger of such a sight bursting unexpectedly on the unprepared woman tenderfoot. Then they'll rope off that dangerous area, establish guards at the corners and put up "Stop! Look! Listen!" signs where they'll do the most good. And as proof of all these statements, I refer you to that array of young gods, filing endlessly over the sporting pages of the California newspapers.

And I'll pay for the privilege. What the Chamber of Commerce ought to do, though, is to advertise that